Seeing Like a Cable Company

By Timothy B. Lee – Imagine it’s March 2005 and you’re Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, or Jawed Karim. You just launched a website called YouTube and you’re trying to raise a round of venture capital. But potential investors keep pointing out that Comcast’s bandwidth cap—and similar caps from other broadband incumbents—constrain the potential demand for YouTube’s product.

You’re likely to find it difficult to even get a meeting. Comcast’s executives have their hands full negotiating deals with big guys like Disney and Time Warner. They’re too busy to talk to a guy with a website they’ve never heard of. Even if you get a meeting, the conversation isn’t likely to go well. more> http://tinyurl.com/7y4xosm

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Why Verizon’s proposed deal with cable companies could kill FiOS and cable competition as we know it

By Jeff Saginor – Ever since Congress passed the Telecommunications Act of 1996 — effectively deregulating the telecom industry in such a way that allowed phone providers and cable companies to start competing in each other’s markets — competition has grown relatively robust. Phone companies offer DSL broadband service in thousands of markets around the country, along with the increasing push of FiOS fiber-optic broadband. Cable companies offer their own cable broadband as well as television service, of which FiOS now also competes.

The proposed agreement between Verizon Wireless and the consortium of cable companies — which includes Comcast, Time Warner, and Bright House Networks — will see cable companies paying Verizon hundreds of dollars for each cable contract obtained through Verizon marketing, and vice versa.

What is at the heart of this debate: Verizon spent nearly $23 billion laying the infrastructure for FiOS in the comparatively small area that it currently serves.

But in the majority of the country — otherwise known as the 85 percent of customers who don’t yet have access to FiOS — this deal is basically a capitulation. more> http://tinyurl.com/7t5wwhg

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T-Mobile seeks to block Verizon spectrum purchase

By Timothy B. Lee – The spectrum under dispute was acquired in an auction by a coalition of cable companies led by Comcast and Time Warner in 2006. But the cable firms have apparently decided they don’t want to be in the wireless business after all. In December, Verizon Wireless announced plans to buy the spectrum, which is in the AWS band, for $3.6 billion.

T-Mobile argues that the current formula does not take into account the fact that the lower-frequency spectrum that Verizon disproportionately holds is more useful than higher-frequency spectrum that T-Mobile itself owns. T-Mobile advocates that the FCC weight spectrum holdings by their market value, rather than treating every megahertz as equally valuable. more> http://is.gd/TNoEe6

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Federal regulators taking a hard look at $3.6 billion Verizon cable deal

Verizon: Paying Politicians to Rule the Air (g1a2d0047c1) (Photo credit: watchingfrogsboil)

By Brendan Sasso – Verizon‘s $3.6 billion deal with a coalition of cable companies is raising eyebrows in Washington and could come under intense regulatory scrutiny.

Verizon agreed in December to buy wireless airwave licenses, or spectrum, from a group of cable companies, including Comcast and Time Warner. Under a separate deal announced simultaneously, Verizon and the cable companies agreed to cross-sell each other’s services.

“This issue is going to attract a lot of review,” Harold Feld, legal director for consumer group Public Knowledge, said. He worried that the deal will allow Verizon, which is the largest wireless carrier, to consolidate its control of the airwaves.

“All of the spectrum seems to be running to the biggest provider,” Feld said. more> http://tinyurl.com/8ycv897

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